Three things can be true at once: 1. Italian clubs were embarrassing in Europe this year. 2. The CWC was a glorified friendly tournament where European clubs saw as a cash grab more than anything. (Widely accepted fact) 3. Flamengo could be worth as much as Man City on the paper, Jorginho has no business coming back to the Italian national team.
“Modern football is based on pace and speed. We need players that can play in both phases! That bring energy and life to the game!” Italian brain-trust: “Yeah we need to bring back Jorginho and Verratti who are both 4-5 years past their prime who need to slow the game down to 5km/hr”
Gasperini: “Il flop delle italiane in Champions? Quest'anno è ancora più negativo degli altri anni, soprattutto in Champions League che non viene vinta da un'italiana dal 2010. Ma va in sintonia con i problemi della Nazionale, che speriamo possa raggiungere il Mondiale. Non è… pic.twitter.com/dHOR6M1HtN— Guido Olivares🇮🇹 (@Guidolino8) March 11, 2026
-------Chiesa----Insigne----Berardi -------------Tonali---Verratti ------------------Jorginho Spinazolla--Bastoni--Acerbi---DiLorenzo ----------------------Buffon Bernadeschi Immobile Balotelli Grifo
Premier League clubs with a disaster showing in the last 16 so far... the modern CL is very difficult you need a great manager two full teams worth of depth and you need your players to hit their physical peak just at the right time. Atalanta beat 2nd place Dortmund and Arsenal could not beat 6th place Leverkusun. Man City were smashed. Bodo smashed Sporting 3-0 again showing that Inter was not an anomaly as they've now beaten top teams from most leagues around Europe. Italian fans need to respect their opponents more and cry less. The CL is very difficult.
I'm beginning to legitimately be afraid of this playoff. When Mancini was CT he had Gabriele Oriali who was his Assistant at Inter. The late Gianluca Vialli who managed for years, and Attilio Lombardo. Then brought in DDR for an apprenticeship of sorts. Gattuso has a long time Assistant (name escapes me). Bonucci just got his Coaching badges recently but hasn't managed a team on his own. Simone Zaza doesn’t have his coaching badges, why is he there? Buffon? Seems to me he has more input on the team than what a delegate should have. Buffon took the role that Luigi Riva once had as part of the delegation, I don't recall Riva seemingly involved with being in the CT's ear when he had his role. So why is Buffon?
Last time an Italian Team won the UCL was Inter in 2010 and that team was full of foreigners. There was not a single Italian plaher even starting that final. Since then we have had Spanish, British, German and French teams winning. No one is denying how hard it is, but we have not won a UCL in over 26 years. Calcio is dead. In addition two failed world cup playoffs. We are also at risk of missing a third world cup. This has nothing to do with respecting opponents, we do respect opponents, it is about not creating alibis or excuses for our current situation.
I was one of the few here calling for Mancini back over Gattuso. Even if we go through, which at this point I have low confidence we will especially away to Wales. We will be utterly humiliated at WC.
Point being about bringing up Mancio's staff is every damn one of them had their Coaching credentials. But with Gattuso's Assistants 2 of them do not. What are we doing here? Even more on the subject of playing too slow. Real possibility that Wales wins their match versus Bosnia and that makes it 2 British teams. Tempo, pace, running around like headless chickens is their thing. Bosnia could very well be the one that qualifies out of this Path but they are not know for high tempo. Italy need to seriously get their shit in order.
They will only do something if they fail to qualify for the third time. Nothing will change if we qualify.
Calcio is dead is not analysis. Bundesliga and Ligue 1 each have one giant that eats the league. Serie A has 5 or 6 teams that will cut each others throats to prevent the other from gaining hegemony. PSG and City spent billions got the best coaches year after year after year for 15 years straight and each have one CL to show for it. This is a very difficult competition to win. The state of Italian football in 2010 was worse than it is now despite Inter winning the CL. It is no coincidence that they promptly fell off the face of the earth after that. Over the last 5 years the Serie A has the 2nd best coefficient in Europe and Italy won its first Euro after 53 years. By our historical standards this is still a very poor era yes but remember Real Madrid did not win the CL between 1966 and 1998 .. Barca did not win their first until 1992... Bayern did not win between 1976 and 2001 and Man U did not win between 68 and 99 and now they have not won since 2008 and counting. The point being that only Milan Juve and Inter can realistically win the CL and both Milan and Inter had complete financial collapse in the 2010s and are only now recovering while Juve have had ups and downs since 2006. Serie A can't win the CL only these three clubs can and they already died in the early 2010s only recently showing a bit of life. We don't need to say Calico is dead every year that they don't win the CL because some of us grew up in the 90s and saw a great era. This happens its football. It will take years still to rebuild Inter Milan and Juve but it will happen.
Also 2010 was 16 years ago not 26 ... Inter Milan Juve have each gone on long droughts throughout their history many times. Winning the champions league is closer to north american sports where you can go decades without winning a championship. Arsenal have never won it. Italian fans were spoiled in the 90s. All 6 Premier League teams combined for 0 wins, 4 defeats and 2 draws this week. Scored 6, conceded 15.
Good points but they won't listen to you unfortunately, TorontoCalabria. Apparently the national team was unstoppable during the 90s and 2000s. I remember before 2006, the rep this team had was a bunch of primadonnas more concerned with their hair and social lives. That was when we had the golden generation basically. People were complaining then. No difference now. Qualification under Ventura was a disaster. Those were dark times. Spalletti then did his best to drag the team back down to that. I wasnt surprised missing out those two times. Im not the most confident now about our chances, but some of you need to get some air. Talking about how 'we dictated games'? Lol when? In the 80s?? Everyone forget about Trap? Cesare Maldini before him? Lol all everyone did was bitch and complain back then. Give me a break. And to those of you comparing Verratti to Jorginho...LOL. Apparently Verratti is 5 years past his prime...28 and youre out Marco! Going to be a fun 2 games.
I've been watching since 1980. Of course we bitched and moaned back then. We are Italians. We always do that. For example, I couldn't stand the fact we couldn't find world class midfielders in the late 90s. It held us back from even more success. But, let's not kid ourselves. We were 10 levels higher than we are now. From 1980-2006 we were playing in and winning WCs or going pretty damn far (aside from the cheating in Korea). This is more than nostalgia. This is obvious. The system is broken. Sure, we can be somewhat competitive here and there, but we are a far cry from what we used to be at both the National Team and club level. Michele Criscitiello is spot on with his criticisms. Many of us recognized these same issues more than a decade ago. We have a patient with cancer...and yet all our fans in Italia do is talk about the patient's nice sweater or nice car. Italian calcio is rotting and short-sighted club fans talk about winning a stupid game against Udinese. The real question Criscitiello should be asking is WHO? Who is going to lead the charge and ORGANIZE people to make these changes. Because without that, we will accomplish nothing.
#Toni a Repubblica: “La SerieA è in difficoltà e il livello sta peggiorando. Bisogna curare di più i Settori Giovanili. Mancano gli insegnanti, molti tecnici non sono preparati. #Baggio aveva fatto un programma di rilancio che non è neanche stato preso in considerazione. Le… pic.twitter.com/Ipr19Ve3kg— Nicolò Schira (@NicoSchira) March 12, 2026
Capello: “Io vedo la palla scorrere lenta, vedo i nostri giocatori che corrono un po’ ma non scattano mai, vedo che giochiamo laterale e non in verticale. Abbiamo preteso di copiare il Barcellona di Guardiola e l’abbiamo fatto male, anche perché qualità e tecnica sono inferiori.… pic.twitter.com/MkA2AgPZ7q— Guido Olivares🇮🇹 (@Guidolino8) March 12, 2026
To all the people that were crying about Verratti rejoining got their wish. He is having knee injury.